As healthy people engage in relationships, they have all sorts of goals in mind: finding connection, having loving exchanges, giving and receiving encouragement, feeling secure, minimizing psychological drama, building mutual respect, and creating safe zones.
Are these goals possible when narcissists are involved? Narcissists might say they want the same as you, but their core ingredients work against it. They are defined by raw selfishness, controlling patterns, superior attitudes, defensiveness, manipulation, and disinterest in others feelings. Those traits work against relationship success.
Narcissists, however, are not known for excellent self-reflective skills, so when they find disappointment and tensions in their relationships, they draw a lightning quick conclusion. You are the cause of their interpersonal frustrations. You are a thorn in their side, and as far as they are concerned, you have proven to be a disappointment. They remind themselves repeatedly that they are not the problem. You’re just unlikeable.
And yet, they can keep coming toward you with all sorts of demands and wishes, indicating they want you to stick around. What’s that all about?
While they don’t have the insight or honesty to admit it, simultaneously, they don’t like you but they need you. In their minds, you represent narcissistic supply. That is, you exist to gratify them. “Feed me” could be their motto. Their inherent insecurity prompts them to seek you out for ego gratification, and even when you prove unwilling to comply, they keep coming toward you. Their hunger for significance is immense.
“I don’t like you; I need you.” Narcissists have little sense of mutuality, but their craving for power implies a need for one they can dominate, and of course, that’s you.
As you encounter this psychological dynamic, it’s necessary to understand what it reveals about a narcissist’s internal chaos. They desperately want you to assume the “bad guy” role, but you are not obliged to play that role.
Let’s highlight what lies beneath their dysfunction.
- Though they would deny it, narcissists are empty inside. They do not have steady contentment or peace to draw upon, meaning they have to get it from outside sources.
- Their inflated selfishness has taken over. They do not think in terms of “us,” only “me.”
- Lacking empathy, they view you as functional only. Your task is to satisfy their transactional desires.
- Even when narcissist seem engaging, they cannot sustain it in meaningful ways. They are posers, and you are little more than an actor on their stage.
- Their craving for dominance overrides an appreciation for equal standing. You are an underling who is supposed to filter your actions through their superior ways.
- Their tight defenses render them incapable of receiving psychological input. Their walls are virtually impenetrable.
These dysfunctions set up the strange dynamic of being unable to tolerate you while desperately needing your deference and conformity. As a result, they criticize easily. They heap shame and guilt onto you and are prone toward ridicule, nasty anger, triangulation, the silent treatment, and stubbornness. They require you to share their opinions and priorities. And all the while, they refuse to validate your preferences.
“I don’t like you; I need you. You’re undesirable, but please defer to me so I can feel steady.”
As you become aware of this contradictory tension, it is important to understand:
- Narcissists don’t love. When they attempt to love, it is little more than trying to satisfy a self-serving fantasy.
- They are takers. You are the designated giver.
- Their own welfare is all that matters.
- Common sense is lost on them. They keep returning to the same old failed relationship strategies.
- They are held captive by their own anger. It inhibits them from seeking higher priorities like patience, acceptance, and self-restraint.
- The reason they offer so much negativity is due to a deep history of unresolved negative experiences. They approach you with an intact pessimistic worldview.
- Oddly, your instability is part of their identity. They think competitively, so to be a winner, they need you to be a loser.
- A narcissist’s need for power lies in direct proportion to their fear of being a nobody. It’s not about you, per se.
It would be wonderful if that narcissistic person could honestly state: “Let’s focus on ways to be compatible. I’d like your helpfulness, just as you’d like mine. We can work as a team.”
But their combination of disdain and neediness prompts them to think: “The more fault I find in you, the better I feel about myself. Please, cater to me.”
Your response can simply be: “No thank you. I have too much self-respect to go into that space.”
~Les Carter, Ph.D.
To watch the video on this topic, click here.
